LA PASTORA, COSTA RICA
Grown by us
La Pastora is our first ever farm – located in Tarrazú, Costa Rica. Read the story of La Pastora, how we came to buy it, and what we're planting there next.
In early 2026 we bought a one-hectare coffee farm high in the mountains of San Lorenzo, in Tarrazú, Costa Rica. It's called La Pastora, and it's the first land we've owned – the result of six years working with producer Carlos Montero and his daughter Marianella and her husband Perry, who we've been visiting almost every year since 2020.
The farm is two parcels of land joined by a strip of protected high-altitude rainforest, which covers an additional 0.44 hectares and is fully protected. Alongside the Geisha there's a small planting of Costa Rica 95, and around 1,000 Millenio H10 trees going into the gaps left by the oldest trees as we replace them. The long-term aim is to produce separate Geisha and H10 microlots from the farm.
We've just had our first harvest of 2026 – a Geisha micro-lot, which will be released very soon, and this page is where we'll keep you posted with more information as the small farm develops.
Grown by Us sits alongside our Relationship Coffees, the coffees we source through direct links with farmers and producers in several countries.
Six years before we bought anything
We first went to Costa Rica in 2020 and met Carlos Montero and his daughter Marianella, and her husband Perru in Tarrazú. Their business, Selva, exports coffee for a wide network of small family farms across the country, and working with them gave us a way into the Costa Rican coffee community that would have taken us years to build alone. We've been back almost every year since.
A few years in, we started talking about the idea of having a small piece of land of our own – somewhere we could follow a single site closely, season after season, and learn properly how different varietals behave. Around the same time, Carlos mentioned he was open to selling some land to raise capital to upgrade his wet mill and dry mill.
That's what set it in motion, though it wasn't quick. It took several more visits, a proper assessment of the land and a good deal of paperwork before we agreed terms in 2025, and the purchase was completed in early 2026.
It's worth being clear about what that means. The sale funded Carlos's investment in his own milling operation and Selva carry on exactly as before – we still buy from their network and we intend to keep doing so. This is one hectare and produces just a very small amount of coffee.
What we're aiming for
The plan is to produce separate Geisha and H10 microlots from the farm as the new planting matures. That's a slow business – newly planted coffee takes a few years before it produces anything worth separating – so this is a project measured in harvests rather than months.
2026 was a modest start. A combination of the natural crop cycle and the age of the older trees meant only a very small amount of Geisha came off the farm this year. We'd rather tell you that than dress it up: this first harvest is genuinely tiny, and the interesting part is what happens over the next few years.
We'll keep this page updated as the planting goes in and the trees progress through the years.
La Pastora location
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Our farm is located high in the mountains between the small towns of Santa Maria and San Marcos, Tarrazu.
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The farm has two sections planted with Geisha, Milenio H10 and a small amount of Costa Rica 95. In total we have 1 hectare planted with coffee and 0.44 hectares of high altitude protected rainforest.
One hectare in Tarrazú
The farm sits high in the mountains of San Lorenzo, in Tarrazú. It's made up of two parcels joined by a strip of protected high-altitude rainforest – about 0.44 hectares, full of birds, butterflies and wildlife. This area stays exactly as it is and will remain protected.
The smaller parcel is planted entirely with Geisha. The trees are only a few years old, but the cherry we harvested this year was of fantastic quality.
The larger parcel is mostly Geisha as well, though those trees are 15 to 20 years old, with a small planting of Costa Rica 95 alongside them. Many have been pruned hard, and some are due for replacement, leaving gaps around 1,000 that we'll fill with H10 Millenio. In total we have 1 hectare planted with coffee.
Our First Harvest
La Pastora, Geisha
Coming Soon - First release of 85 x 150g boxes released in November
